So I made these cupcakes without realizing the recipe was written for high altitude—and I really should’ve paid more attention to that. I kind of assumed it wouldn’t make that big of a difference, but… yeah, it definitely did. The cupcakes came out pretty dense, didn’t rise much, and had this sort of chewy texture that you don’t want in a cupcake. Not inedible by any means, just not the soft, fluffy cupcake I was expecting.

The process itself is pretty standard; sift the dry ingredients, whisk the wet, then combine the two. You scoop the batter into liners, bake, and let them cool before frosting. Nothing complicated, which is part of why I didn’t think twice about jumping into it.

The buttercream didn’t quite turn out the way I like either. It wasn’t as creamy or smooth as I wanted—it felt a little stiff and clumpy, even after beating it for the full 5 minutes like the instructions said. I will say that my normal frosting these days is a mix of butter and shortening so it’s possible I’m just not used to all butter frostings anymore.

Honestly, by the time I got to the decorating part I was kind of over it. Everything looked a little sad, so I definitely phoned it in as you can likely tell from the photo. I skipped the cute paper straw garnish and just did the bare minimum to get them finished.

The flavor itself was fine, but I wasn’t really into the mint. As mentioned, it didn’t quite deliver in the texture department either (probably thanks to the altitude issue) and the icing wasn’t great either so all in all this one didn’t really turn out for me.

Baking Ease	10
Time Spent	9
Taste	6
Visual	6

Recipe Used: Curly Girl Kitchen